


The Morning After

by decembersiris, EnjoninePride



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Enjolras POV, EnjonineWeek2018, F/M, eponine pov, the morning after prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-27 10:51:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15683949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decembersiris/pseuds/decembersiris, https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnjoninePride/pseuds/EnjoninePride
Summary: How Éponine and Enjolras react after an evening together.





	The Morning After

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: For Day 1: The Morning After, we, @kugirocks and @decemersiris, decided to do a collab, a short, less than 1,000 word oneshot each. Kugirocks wrote for Éponine’s POV and decembersiris wrote for Enjolras’s POV.

Éponine

The cool early morning wind blew past the young figure as she paced down the cobble stone streets of the Parisian alleys.

                 She didn’t want to think about it. What happened last night meant nothing to her.

                 Éponine Thenadier did not even remember how the events of last night escalated. All that her memories could supply was of the Marble Man warning her of the danger she may bring to his operation.

                                                                    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

                 “The revolution has not yet begun, monsieur.”

                 “It may begin any day now.”

                 “When? Today? Tomorrow?”

                 “Any day. All I ask is that you do not get involved.”

                 “And what if I refuse?”

                 The Marble Man shook his head.

                 “You are a curious child.”

                 Éponine placed her hands on her hips. “I am not a child. I am a woman who has the good sense to know where my place is.”

                 “Well, your place is not with the revolution.”

                 “You are right. It’s with Marius.”

                 “This is a revolution! Not a ball. There is no place for a woman on the barricades.”

                 “There’s no place for young boys like yourself on the barricades either!”

                 “We are fighting for change…!”

                 She watched as his forehead scrunched up, his eyes turning from a deep blue to a dark, stormy blue. His marble figure seeming to change from Apollo to Ares as his temper started to get heated. Despite his look of anger, there was still a bit of attractiveness in his appearance. Enjolras pursed his lips in contemplation, trying to pick out his words carefully as he was dealing with a woman.

                 “We fight for a new world. For liberty. For equality. For a stronger and more beneficial foundation for our descendants and if we must, we will die for this change.”

                 “Your efforts are all going to be for nothing! There will be no change! Nothing what you are fighting for will make any big of a difference to the people! You don’t know what you are getting yourself into!”

                 Éponine began to notice that the words were slipping out of her mouth faster than she could think of them.

                 “I know what I am getting myself into! I am fighting for the rights of the people! You only think about Marius…”

                 “Marius has _nothing to do with this!_ Don’t you _dare_ bring him into this conversation!”

                 Enjolras raised his eyebrow. “Well, why else would you want to join our fight?”

                 Éponine puffed. “Because I care about him! It’s not like you care! You are leading a lamb to slaughter!”

                 The Marble Man chuckled in a frustrated tone.

                 “If you were not a woman, you would be speaking with a fist in your mouth!”

                 Éponine, shocked yet not surprised at the insult, shot back.

                 “And if I were a man you would be looking at me with swollen eyes!” She held her fist in front of his face.

                 Enjolras pulled her fist closer to his face.

                 “Go on, then! Do it!”

                 With the anger and resentment she felt towards him at that moment, she looked into his deep blue eyes.

                 They had fear inside them.

                 From all the times she had seen him and spoke to him, at rallies, at meetings, organizing his friends and fellow men to rise up against oppression, he held an aura of strength, pride, and honor, something she admired about him. But more importantly, he seemed not to be scared of what may be.

                 Last night, she realized that he was frightened. He may not show it out right, but deep inside, he did.

                 She felt sorry for him. A student who had great leadership, but never held a gun, and any day now an uprising may start. Lives will be lost. Lives of his friends.

                 Her heart pounded and fire filled her veins as she continued to look into this handsome revolutionary’s eyes. There was something human about him that she didn’t know if anyone else saw in him. 

From that moment onward Éponine’s memory faded. She could feel nothing but his soft lips on her skin, his large rough hands caressing his curves, and her hands on his well sculpted form.

                                                                    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

                 The light streams of orange began to fill the sky as dawn began to approach. She dared not to continue her thoughts of what she could remember of that night.

                 She felt nothing towards the Marble Man. Nothing at all.

                 “He's a man. He's just a man and I've had so many men before, in very many ways, he's just one more.”

                 Éponine thought to herself.

                 But something felt different about him. Could there have been…? No. There was only Marius.

                 As she continued to walk on the cobblestone streets, she tried to erase the events from her mind, but all she could see was him.

Her heart pounded like a beating drum in her chest as his presence remained in her mind.

Whether he thought of anything of that night or not, she did not wish to know. What was done was done. A new day had begun.

* * *

 

Enjolras

                 Enjolras woke up cold. The dawn had not yet broken the nighttime horizon, and Paris was still quiet with a heavy, hushed air. The window had been left open, the cool breeze singing into his bedroom, and he rubbed his eyes, feeling his skin prick with the chill. Sighing, he rose from the bed, groaning from broken sleep’s bitter hold, his muscles working to lift and drag him to the open window. He slammed it shut, more forcefully than he meant to, and he thought he heard the rustling of his sheets. Was she still there, sleeping in his bed? He turned his head and he found himself disappointed to find his bed empty. He disliked the feeling of dejection, especially with this, when he already knew she would not stay. Never had he any qualms of waking up alone, but never before had it been Éponine Thénardier to leave his bed.

                 He breathed deeply through his nose, suddenly finding little comfort in his own bed. He left his bedroom and settled for the sofa in the living space of his flat. He leaned back into the sofa, reclining his head back to stare blankly up into the darkness of the room. He expected it, he told himself. He felt nothing for her, he reminded himself. It was sex borne out of anger and pity, out of need, and nothing more than that. He grit his teeth, remembering the way her hand felt as it roamed his body, the gentleness of her chapped lips, her breath in his ear. Hissing in frustration, he jumped to his feet and went to light the candles on the nightstands beside the sofa. He found his sketchbook and returned to the sofa, pen and ink in hand. He drew a hard line, thick at first then thinning as he dragged his hand across the paper. He frowned, scrutinizing the unevenness of the line, but still he kept going, drawing out line after line, clutching his pen as if it sought to escape his grasp.

                 Minutes passed before pulling away from his work, nothing but scribbles and lines. He didn’t know what he had hoped to gain from this sudden artistic bombardment, but nevertheless, he felt as if his hand had failed him. Growling, he tore the paper, crumpled it, and tossed it away. Dark hair entered his mind, rough, knotted, unclean, but black, black, black. He sketched out another line, more careful this time, more exact to whatever image that invaded his mind, whatever it was that drew focus from the night before. The line developed, thin and thick and thin again with curves and rounded edges that dipped and swelled. He had tangled that black hair in his fingers, wracking his hand through those thick tresses, and he remembered the feel of his lips against her jugular. His knuckles whitened, and the next line he drew was thick again, short and straight and almost angry. He stared at that line, wondering if he had made a mistake, wondering if he should ignore and forget it all together. Deep brown eyes, and in the orange glow of the candlelight, beautiful orbs of amber set in a face of porcelain. The next three lines were softer, gentler, strewn with care and collection so that they might appear perfect to him. Never once did her hands touch his; her fingers did not lace themselves with his, and he did not force his hand on hers. He didn’t want Éponine’s hand, he convinced himself.

                 Enjolras pulled away from his sketch, staring at the lines and curves, and as he stared, his eyes began to make sense of his creation. A blanket cut off the view of the thigh that led up to the hips. There was a line between to imply the buttocks, and that line led his eye up across the spine and back. It was a woman in his drawing, and her arms were sprawled up over her head, her face turned away to reveal the line of her neck and flow of her hair. She was drawn in a relaxed position, in such that she might even be sleeping. Enjolras frowned, unhappy with how he had handled her hair. He scribbled and sketched, pulling line after line across the paper before restraining his hand. Each line had only served to darken the hair. Enjolras’s jaw tightened, his blood heating beneath his skin. She was warm, her limbs wrapped around him and she clutched at his hair, tugged and pulled springing forth a pain that was indeed delicious. She was soft, she was ruthless, she was seduction itself, and he filled his senses with all of her.

                 And his drawing had filled him with longing, with an empty ache. She hadn’t the courtesy to say goodbye. He didn’t expect her to so why did it bother him so? He tossed the sketchbook aside, sighing in aggravation as he did. He imagined her leaving, abandoning him to the dark and the cold. Did she look back? No, that would be so unlike her. Would she miss him? He chuckled bitterly, a pathetic thought. It did not matter, their affair meant nothing, and he was nothing to her just as she was to him. Her foolish heart, her insipid thoughts and wishes were filled with Marius, always Marius, never room for anyone else. That was her way, and Enjolras was painfully aware. He glanced at the drawing at his side. Eyes narrowing, he stood, removing himself from its presence and returned to his bedroom. That gutter girl meant nothing to him, he swore it, her name turning sore on his tongue. Crawling into bed, he could still smell the musk and sweat of the previous night, and he felt his heart pound and ache. He shut his eyes, melting into visions of ebony hair and ivory skin.


End file.
